Accessibility of iTunes

From Steeple

Contents 1 Accessibility of iTunes 1.1 Information about accessible versions 1.2 Support for hearing impaired users 1.3 Keyboard access 1.4 Screenreader access 1.5 Magnifier access 1.6 Voice recognition access 1.7 Operating system accessibility settings

[edit] 1 Accessibility of iTunes

iTunes accessibility was evaluated by the Open University in mid-June 2009 under Windows XP, and with Jaws 10, ZoomText 9 (screen magnifier), and Windows High Contrast display setting (large font, white and yellow on black), and Dragon 9 (voice recognition).

[edit] 1.1 Information about accessible versions

It is important that transcripts are clearly visible in relation to the original media. It is also important that the presence of captions is recorded in the metadata so that users are aware they are available. If signed video was made available this would also need to be indicated to users.

[edit] 1.2 Support for hearing impaired users

iTunes can play both captioned (open and closed caption) and subtitled movies, and the search has an option for just searching for captioned material. When captions are provided this is indicated with a ‘CC’ logo in the description of the content ²¹.

²¹ iTunes support for hearing impaired users: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/hearing.html

[edit] 1.3 Keyboard access

In testing it was found that it is possible to use the ‘tab and enter’ method for accessing the buttons, but it is first necessary to go to Preferences and select ‘enable full keyboard navigation’. Some keyboard shortcuts are available and are listed under the Help menu.

There is information from Apple about keyboard access, but this focuses on Mac OS features 22.

²² iTunes support for users with manual impairments: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/physical.html

[edit] 1.4 Screenreader access

There is conflicting information about iTunes accessibility from different sources. Apparently Apple and the US National Federation of the Blind have made an agreement on accessibility: “Under the agreement, [Apple] has agreed to make iTunes U…fully accessible by the end of 2008, and the rest of the iTunes Store (plus the iTunes software) will be fully accessible to the blind by June 30, 2009” ²³. This implies that it may not be fully accessible at this time.

In contrast Apple says that iTunes 8 is already compatible with screenreaders ²⁴. Freedom Scientific, the developers of Jaws, says that Jaws 10 fully supports iTunes 8 ²⁵. Reports on the Jaws users’ list ²⁶ suggest that users are successfully using this combination.

A program called J-tunes is available which works between Jaws and iTunes to enable various aspects to be read out automatically and provides its own keyboard shortcuts ²⁷. This software has not been tested for this report.

In testing it was found that Jaws 10 can read most of the main interface, but cannot read some aspects or some of the content. For example Jaws could not read the following:

• Some images on the store home page did not have labels that repeated the text embedded in the image,
• On the OU iTunes U Astronomy page it could not read the list of videos: it could read the first item but not the others in the list.
• In the list of videos the ‘get film’ was not read
• The titles of the menus (File, Edit, View, Controls etc) although the contents of the menus were read.

In addition the Search fields are not labelled correctly and so Jaws did not read ‘title’ or ‘artist’ field names.

²³ Apple promises more accessibility in iTunes in 2008, 2009: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/09/apple-promises-more-accessibility-in-itunes-in-2008-2009.ars

²⁴ iTunes support for visually impaired users: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/vision.html

²⁵ Jaws’ support for iTunes: http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/BulletinView.asp?QC=1302

²⁶ Jaws users list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com/index.html

²⁷ J-Tunes: http://www.tandt-consultancy.com/pages/j-tunes.php

[edit] 1.5 Magnifier access

When tested most of the application magnified well. However, some aspects where graphical text (as opposed to plain text) is used, e.g. the ‘get’ buttons etc, this becomes jagged and distorted when magnified.

[edit] 1.6 Voice recognition access

When tested Dragon could access the menus and left hand menu with voice commands, but could not operate the search without using the mousegrid commands.

[edit] 1.7 Operating system accessibility settings

When windows is set to have ‘high contrast’ setting the left hand pane and the menus inherit the setting, but the main store pane does not (see screenshot below). This means that people who require this setting may find the main pane difficult to read because the white background is too harsh on their eyes.

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